Charlie Schlenker
Senior ReporterWGLT Senior Reporter Charlie Schlenker grew up in Rock Island, Illinois, and graduated from Augustana College. He has spent more than four decades in radio and has won numerous state and national awards for journalism. He lives in Normal with his family.
Contact Charlie at ceschle@ilstu.edu.
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The sport of pickleball has had explosive growth over the last 10 years. About nine million people now play in the U.S. In Bloomington-Normal, parks and rec departments have added a lot of courts, and a private concern is building an indoor pickleball facility. But along with the rise in the number of players, there has been huge increase in the number of injuries.
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Some worry about the militarization of police agencies nationwide as tactical units, automatic weapons, body armor, and armored vehicles proliferate to cities across the nation. A noted scholar who will appear at Illinois State University on March 28 said that's really nothing new.
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Retired Chief Circuit Judge Beth Robb knew she wanted to be a lawyer as early as Junior High School in Macomb. It wasn't easy. She went to Illinois Wesleyan University and on to law school, then came back to Bloomington-Normal and couldn’t get a job
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The chess teams at Evans Junior High School in Bloomington have done something that has never been done before in state history. Its sixth, seventh, and eighth graders have all won state championships in the same year.
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Domestic violence, experimental theater, the corrections system, the environment, municipal government — you name it, Carol Reitan made it better. She was also the first female mayor of Normal.
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The jobless rate in the Bloomington-Normal area ticked up to 4.4% in January, up from 3.9% a year ago, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said Wednesday. That increase comes despite the Twin City economy has 3,600 more jobs in January than it had a year ago, according to state data.
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The Community Health Care Clinic in Normal has recovered its federal tax-exempt status. The agency that serves low-income people with no or inadequate health insurance lost its 501-C-3 designation in May of last year.
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The Catholic Diocese of Peoria has backed off a proposal to close Holy Trinity Church in Bloomington, relieving several community members who submitted a lengthy report in the hope the proposed closure would be reversed.
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Hundreds of people gathered at Normal Community High School to welcome back the boys basketball team from the state championships over the weekend. The team received a fond and enthusiastic welcome from fans and family after taking second place in Class 4A against Homewood Flossmoor.
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Children are supposed to have a childhood. In some ways Carla Barnes-Wheeler did not. Her father was absent. Her mother struggled with mental illness. Friend and Bloomington-Normal NAACP President Linda Foster said Barnes-Wheeler, the youngest of four children grew up in a poor area of Chicago Heights.